Before Heaven

by Michael Dwayne Smith

animal skins beneath
lightening contusions
were bruised by cloud shadow,
sweet with the dust of red dirt and yellow teeth,
mesh of bones long since gone to sea
with shards of rain,
run down mountains, funneled down mud hills,
crashing against glassy weed of ocean,
and in that marinade of salt, sperm, and egg,
that prescient cold soup
rich with zygotes of dumb government,
thick headed chains of DNA,
planet conquering, self-raping, underfed, overestimated
one way monkeys, stupid with milky eyes,
supposing stars dabbed horrific black sky for reasons
only upright thumbsters could understand,
only heaven’s invention could remand,
water was singing music of our own demise.